Even Brian Clough would have felt wrath of today’s fans

Clough, second from right, brought success on a breathtaking scale in his first 5½ years at ForestRex Features

To those who subscribe to the belief that football started in 1992, the enduring legend of Brian Clough must be rather odd. By the first season of the Premier League era, this great manager had become a washed-up drunk, a blotchy Spitting Image caricature, looking impotent as, like King Canute, he found that his majesty alone could not stop the rising tide.

Almost two decades on, the grim details of Clough’s final year in charge of Nottingham Forest make for excruciating reading. In Provided You Don’t Kiss Me, Duncan Hamilton’s award-winning book based on 16 years reporting on Forest for the Nottingham Evening Post, Clough comes across as a man who had lost touch, stripped of his aura and his authority to make difficult — and…

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